Kyoko lays in her bed wide awake and unable to sleep. Her mind is awhirl with thoughts and emotions circling each other. It doesn't help that she had been out for most of the day. In vain she tries to shut out all the various threads of thoughts in her mind. Finally giving up, she gets up and turns on the television - on a low volume so as not to awake Shin.
'You just want someone to notice you.' a man says bitterly to a woman. A drama. Kyoko hastily changes the channel. 'It's not because of those words' she tries to tell herself. 'I'm just jealous of other people getting to act' - The next channel is a racy late-night show. Kyoko drops the remote in her hurry to change it.
"There has got to be something I can watch." she says as she quickly picks the remote and starts flipping through channels, "Ah! A cooking channel. That should be safe." Before long she is engrossed in a completely new way to cook eel.
"That's amazing Sensei" says the news anchor. "How did you invent this method?"
"Of course in cooking as in life, one should never forget the basics. I created this dish by going back to the basics." he says.
Kyoko is struck by the words - "back to the basics". Hurriedly she gets out a piece of pen and paper. Back when Kyoko was still just a talent, around the time she was working on "Dark Moon", she had been bombarded with requests for 'just like Mio' roles. After getting advice from Hizuri Kuu, and creating many unique versions of 'Mio', she had created an acting exercise for herself. Simply put, the actor has to write down five different situations for a particular description and act out them out one by one until each of the situations is mastered. Kyoko had found that it had helped her understand the uniqueness of each villain role and not have them all come out "exactly like Mio".
Given that recently she had been only getting roles described as "cold and unfeeling", maybe she can try this exercise. She tries to write down some situations that could result in someone being "cold and unfeeling". 'Hmmm.. Is there someone I know who I can call cold and unfeeling?'
A woman's voice echoes in Kyoko's head -"Why can't you do these problems? Why can't you do what I could at your age?" It is her mother Saena scolding Kyoko when she was younger.
Quickly Kyoko scribbles down on the paper -"A cold and unfeeling mother". She then stares at it for a while thinking of her own mother's feelings and motivations. Saena had always had trouble feeling motherly towards Kyoko, only seeing her own failure and Kyoko's father's betrayal whenever she looked at her. Although over the years, Saena had come to see Kyoko with fondness, her unfeeling and strict nature towards Kyoko had scarred Kyoko rather badly. So when asked to come up with someone "cold and unfeeling", Kyoko had remembered her mother from all those years ago. Frowning and concentrating, Kyoko puts a timer on for five minutes and places her phone in front of her with video recording on. Taking a deep breath, she closes her eyes. When she opens them, she is a different person. Her eyes have narrowed to cold hard slits. Her lips are a thin line of disapproval. Combined with the family resemblance, it is as if Kyoko has become Saena.
"This!" She flings her hand in disgust as though throwing a sheet of paper onto the floor. " You call these marks? They are not worth the paper they are written on."
"Why are you so stupid? Are you even my child? The way you are going - you will be good for nothing except sitting at home and making babies. No, not even that - you won't even find a husband. They'll all use you and throw you away. They'll leave you. He will walk away without a word to explain and you will be left picking up the pieces."
Kyoko stops, realizing what she was saying. In a split second though, she recovers and continues. Her voice becomes more mellow - a pretend sad voice that is somehow even more unfeeling.
"I work hard day in and day out so you can have a good education and have a chance at a good future. But even if I give you enough money to last your entire life, you will throw it all away because you can't do basic math. You got 97% in math. How can you get anything less than 100% in math? And science? Science is nothing but common sense and logic. If you add acid and base you get salt and water. If you eat seafood, there is a risk of food poisoning."
Kyoko stiffens and stops once again . Shaking her head she tries once more.
"If I had known this is the child I will have, I would never want to be a mother. A child who keeps coming to me and pestering me to love her and wasting my time. Showing me your stupid marks when I have this important case to work on. Get away from me. I don't want you. My career is more important to me than anything else. I don't deserve a loving husband or a child or a family." The timer chimes the end of five minutes but Kyoko is unable to stop. "I am a murderer. I am a mother who killed her own child. I deserve to die."
Silence follows as Kyoko stands there frozen dumbstruck by her words. She unclenches her hands which had been clenched tightly the whole time. She collapses to the floor and starts shaking uncontrollably. And then her shoulders sag and the tears start falling steadily, releasing all her pent up emotions and turning into huge raking sobs.
"Did you? Kill your own child?" asks Shin who has been sitting quietly in the room watching Kyoko.